Iron Age In India

In the prehistory of the Indian subcontinent, the Iron Age succeeded Bronze Age India and partly corresponds with the megalithic cultures of South India. Other Iron Age archaeological cultures of north India were the Painted Grey Ware culture (1300–300 BCE) and the Northern Black Polished Ware (700–200 BCE). This corresponds to the transition of the Janapadas or principalities of the Vedic period to the sixteen Mahajanapadas or region-states of the early historic period, culminating in the emergence of the Maurya Empire towards the end of the period.

The earliest evidence of iron smelting predates the emergence of the Iron Age proper by several centuries.

Region

Northern India

R. Tewari (2003) radiocarbon dated iron artefacts in Uttar Pradesh, including furnaces, tuyeres, and slag between c. 1000 BCE to 1800 BCE. Antiquity of iron in India was pushed back from following the excavations at Malhar, Raja Nala ka Tila, Dadupur and Lauhradewa in Uttar Pradesh from 1996-2001.

The use of iron and iron working was prevalent in the Central Ganga Plain and the Eastern Vindhyas from the early second millennium BCE.

The beginning of the use of iron has been traditionally associated with the eastward migration of the later Vedic people, who are also considered as an agency which revolutionised material culture particularly in the Greater Magadhan region.

Scholar Rakesh Tewari states that new finds and their dates suggest the need for a fresh review. According to him, the evidence corroborates the early use of iron in other areas of the country, and attests that India was indeed an independent centre for the development of the working of iron.

However, reviewing the claims of earliest uses of iron during c. 1800-1000 BCE, archaeologist Suraj Bhan noted, "the stratigraphical context and chronology of iron is not beyond doubt" at these sites (namely Malhar, Dadupur, and Lahuradeva) although "there is no doubt" that iron was being used in the Ganges Plains "a few centuries before the rise of urbanization ..around 600 BCE".

Southern India

Recently discovered iron age sites in the south of India in Mayiladumparai may be the oldest iron-age sites in India, dated at c. 2172 BCE. Previously known early iron age sites in South India are Hallur, Karnataka and Adichanallur, Tamil Nadu at around 1000 BCE. Mahurjhari near Nagpur was a large bead manufacturing site.

The earliest reliably dated iron furnace in Tamil Nadu was from the 5th century BCE at Kodumanal, Tamil Nadu.

Oldest evidence of iron smelting in Tamil Nadu has been suggested to c.3345 BCE based on radiometric datings between c. 3345 to 2953 BCE of charcoal samples from the site (named Sivagalai), although paddy sample from the intact burial urn containing iron objects returned datings of c. 1155 BCE and c. 1248 BCE. The findings were not published in a scientific journal, and have been questioned by some scholars because of the major disturbances in the stratigraphy of the sites, wherein materials of completely different ages were found nearby and mixed together, and it was the earliest charcoal datings which selectively were announced as being the date of iron usage in disregard of the basic principles of archaeological stratigraphy. Other scholars have observed, "besides the political theatrics," that "these findings raise many questions" regarding the "dates which span two thousand years ..as no culture would remain static, materially for two thousand years." Scarce use of iron was also present in the Middle East as early as c.3000 BCE, but it was not until c.1200 BCE that large-scale iron metallurgy became widespread, replacing use of bronze in weapons and implements, which signified the commencement of the full-fledged Iron Age.

See also

* Archaeology of India
* History of metallurgy in the Indian subcontinent
* Pottery in the Indian subcontinent
;Others
*History of India
*Indus Valley Civilisation
*Mahajanapadas
*Stone Age
*Vedic period

References

Further reading

*Kenoyer, J.M. 1998 Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization. Oxford University Press and American Institute of Pakistan Studies, Karachi.
*Kenoyer, J. M. 1991a The Indus Valley Tradition of Pakistan and Western India. In Journal of World Prehistory 5(4): 331–385.
*Kenoyer, J. M. 1995a Interaction Systems, Specialized Crafts and Culture Change: The Indus Valley Tradition and the Indo-Gangetic Tradition in South Asia. In The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia: Language, Material Culture and Ethnicity, edited by G. Erdosy, pp. 213–257. Berlin, W. DeGruyter.
*Shaffer, J. G. 1992 The Indus Valley, Baluchistan and Helmand Traditions: Neolithic Through Bronze Age. In Chronologies in Old World Archaeology (3rd Edition), edited by R. Ehrich, pp. 441–464. Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
*Chakrabarti, D.K.
** 1974. Beginning of Iron in India: Problem Reconsidered, in A.K. Ghosh (ed.), Perspectives in Palaeoanthropology: 345–356. Calcutta: Firma K.L. Mukhopadhyay.
** 1976. The Beginning of Iron in India. Antiquity 4: 114–124.
** 1992. The Early Use of Iron in India. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
** 1999. India An Archaeological History. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
* {{citation , last=Chakrabarti, first=Dilip K. , chapter=Mahajanapada States of Early Historic India , title=A Comparative Study of Thirty City-state Cultures: An Investigation , publisher=Kgl. Danske Videnskabernes Selskab , year=2000 , isbn=8778761778 , chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8qvY8pxVxcwC&pg=PA375 , pages=375–393

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